Radical
Gratitude
by Mary Jo Leddy
Holy Manners 30
Bookstudy - Winter 2013
ACTS Committee
St. David’s United Church,
Calgary, Canada
rg.stdavidscalgary.net
1
Session 2
Ch 2
Perpetual
Dissatisfaction
Additional resources are on site. http://rg.stdavidscalgary.net
2
What Drives Us?
We are so rich we make houses for cars. We are told the car
will make us happy but the car drives us.
The Culture of Money
•More influential than cultures of democracy or religion.
•Consumerism is dominant.
•Advertising - anything repeated becomes true. Each
American sees 3 years of advertising in a lifetime.
•“The devastation begins when material realities begin to
consume us as human beings.”
9
The Captivity of Craving.
• “The problem arises when we think that we are buying
identity, meaning, and purpose in the process. According to
ancient wisdom, identity, meaning, and happiness are
discovered rather than purchased.”
• “The microchip itself crystallizes this craving.”
• Craving may be subtle - the craving of More: more
experiences, more relationships, more information, more
spirituality.
• luxury transforms to need.
9
Culturally Induced Dissatisfaction.
9
Culturally Induced Dissatisfaction.
9
A Deeper Dissatisfaction.
• “I don’t have enough, becomes I am not enough, becomes I
am not good enough.”
• “It generates within us profound feelings of powerlessness
...”
• “Nothing I do or say will make a difference. My life doesn’t
matter.”
• There are two ways to respond: to feel paralyzed or to be
perpetually busy, unable to say no.
9
A Wider Dissatisfaction.
• This can “... also manifest itself in a general dissatisfaction
with other people, with one’s work, with the world, and with
one’s church or religious tradition.”
• “... the other is never ‘good enough’”
• [we] “... belittle what is done ...”
• [it] “... can extend even to the world ...”
• “it makes it almost impossible to cherish the world ...”.
9
Partial Liberations.
• There are: very well trained ministers, helpful therapies, wise
spiritual guides.
• “However, these programs can never be completely helpful
as long as the underlying dynamic in the culture of money
continues unabated.”
• “This should at least make us consider the claim that
spirituality may succeed where organized religion has failed.”
• “The search for spirituality can itself become a consuming
process.” .
9
Partial Liberations.
• “Religion alone cannot establish solid values and
relationships as long as the culture of money remains
unquestioned and untransformed.”
• “If the work for justice is driven by a general dissatisfaction
with the world, with other people, and with institutions, then it
will never lead to profound lasting social change.”
• “Genuine social and political change can happen only if it is
based on or accompanied by an attempt to transform the
spirit of craving and dissatisfaction.”
9
Captivity Then and Now.
• *The Babylonian captivity of ancient Israel was a time of
prophets, and of their writing their scriptures.
• “These prophets spoke the unpopular message that the
people were in captivity because of choices they had made ...
They were in captivity because their forbears believed they
could “... buy and sell identity, meaning, and happiness.”
• It was not the poor that were taken to Babylon, but the
elites and the skilled workers.
9
Captivity Then and Now.
• Second Isaiah provided a basis for hope when he got them
to consider how their God was different from the god of
empire. This parallels our own experience. “We are in
captivity because we have made a god out of an economic
system and have worshipped it as if it were the only reality.”
• “Too many who deal in the business of knowledge and
religion seem strangely unable to question the underlying
cultural assumptions that hold us captive.”
9
Video - 15 m
A Lecture - “Jesus and Empire”
by John Dominic Crossan.
A leading Jesus scholar backgrounds how Christianity was
born in a context of Empire. And how different were the
reactions of John and Jesus to the power of Empire.
A lesson for our own time, when the consequence of economic
injustice is again “global”, as in Jesus’ time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFjECpxADCU
9
Break
Discussion Questions:
1. Do you agree with Mary Jo that we
are an imperial society and our
dissatisfaction is mainly due to our
culture of money?
2. What would Jesus do? What might
the United Church do? What might we
do?
next week: Ch 3. Radical Gratitude
10